What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching? ARCHIVE

Rollerball (75) is excellent and definitely still holds up. Caan is excellent.

If you watch the DVD with commentary there's some discussion that the script/director's angle isn't really critiquing roller derby, but the increasing violence of sports in general (including football/boxing).

charlest wrote: If you watch the DVD with commentary there's some discussion that the script/director's angle isn't really critiquing roller derby, but the increasing violence of sports in general (including football/boxing).

Oops, that's not what I meant. I meant that as a modern viewing audience looking back it's easy to dismiss the movie since it uses a roller derby variant as its hyper-violent sport of the future when roller derby hasn't been in fashion since the early 80's, at the latest. I'm ready to put Rollerball on the shelf next to Death Race 2000 when it comes to 1970's dystopian sci-fi movies that were eerily on the nose when it came to predicting trends in the media's glorification of violence. The scene with Jonathan's brain-dead teammate certainly looks prescient now after the year the NFL had with its series of concussion and brain trauma scandals.

There were some great science-fiction movies in the '70s, and Rollerball is one of the better ones. It postulates a specific future and then explores the implications of the setting. Star Wars is a fun movie, but more of a fantasy movie than a science-fiction movie, despite the high-tech trappings.

A local cinema decided to show Blade Runner's Final Cut and not having ever seen the movie before I decided to go and see it.

I liked it, but I can't say it's great. The photography, direction and ambiance are all amazing but characterization is weak and I never got a hold of the motives of any of the characters. Sure, I get them, in an abstract sense, but there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't have much backing, like Deckard and the girl falling in love, Roy saving Deckard after repeateadly trying to kill him, and the dull surprises of Tyrell's employees at seeing replicants on Earth. There's some goofy stuff too, like Roy sticking his head out of walls, and one of the replicant girls trying to kill Deckard with backflips. The dove stuff was kind of embarrasing too, and very forced as was the chess game.

Still, it's a good movie that I do not regret watching at all.


I also saw another movie not particularly heavy in its characterization. The Thief of the Cobbler: The Reccobbled cut, that unfinished animation movie that has been in production for more than 30 years by the director of Roger Rabbit. And the animation is, indeed, incredible, it has some of the best scenes I've ever seen in an animated film. And even the most average scenes are so amazing that they would have been centerpieces in any other animated movie, with lots of rotation effects, crowd scenes and simply great., funny poses. Here's an example:



If you like animation and enjoy it for its own sake, and I know a good bunch of you do, you should see this film. It has, however, two main flaws.

The first is that it's unfinished and some of the scenes are only shown through pencil tests, workprints or storyboards and a couple good scenes are hard to grok because of it. It's still beautiful and it's fun to watch how a movie comes together but it's a bit annoying sometimes. There are also changes from different prints, some better, some worse, some in 16:9, some scan and pan and it might be distracting. But personally, the second, most important flaw is that it's not tightly paced, it's animation for animation's sake and many scenes are pure showcases with not much in the way of characterization, plot or overall impact on the film.

So yeah, I think that if you like animation you should see it. Oh, and it will totally ruin Disney's Alladin for you, because that movie plagiarized a lot of stuff from this one. Jafar, for example, is an obvious copy of Cobbler's villain down to their mannerisms.

I have Battle of Five Armies playing on my tv in the background while I work. The movie is somehow better with the sound turned off. Its just all about the Middle Earth visuals to enjoy.

try turning off the TV completely and it's even better still

Any Frank Castle fans here? You need to watch The Purge: Anarchy if so because Frank Grillo plays the lead and he's a dear ringer for him.

After hearing some praise here I watched In Bruges last night. What an entertaining flick, The characters were likable, the banter was really funny and the story ran along at a good clip without feeling rushed. It's like a funnier, smarter, less gritty Guy Ritchie movie.

I appreciate movies that tell a good story without succumbing to the Hollywood notion that a movie must be a bloated, two-hour ordeal.

Black Barney wrote: I've mentionned it before, but the scene when he wakes up after losing Blunt to the helicopter attempt, that was really something

I have seen Edge of Tomorrow close to a dozen times. And I think Cruise is fantastic in it and every time I see that scene you mention above I marvel at it. But not only his haunted look but even the actor playing opposite him in that scene - he sees the look and knows to shut up. Great scene.

I like Cruise's work, especially his part in Tropic Thunder which I am so happy he chose to do something so different.

Watched This is Where I Leave You on a flight. Looked like it might be decent with Jason Bateman and Tina Fey, but it really wasn't. Dysfunctional family stuff, blah blah blah... A few poignant moments, but mostly contrived and some parts with really clunky dialogue.

I'm so happy to see more people talking about how they enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow. I do a lot more lurking than posting here, but I had to jump in to say that I loved that movie when I saw it in theatres last year and watched it again twice while on a recent business trip - once on the plane and then caught it once in the hotel a day later, and still wanted to see it again!

The way those mech suits looked was pretty much exactly how I imagine an early generation of suits would look/feel. You really got the feeling that they were cumbersome and a pain in the ass to use, and I also liked that their batteries only lasted for a couple of hours. That was a nice "realistic" touch. Of course command would send soldiers out on a invasion with the bare minimum in power! The "did you just take my battery!?" bit from Cruise on his third (?) loop was great as well.

Also really enjoyed the editing on the "training montage" cutting back and forth between Cruise and Blunt going over the literally step by step details of how to get off the beach and them dying repeatedly. I thought it would end up seeming too video gamey, but it worked. Also worked emotionally when they would take longer every once in a while to linger on Blunt's corpse after a failed attempt. It could have easily been a flat, emotionless action flick, but I feel they made it into something more. And I agree with what everyone has said about Cruise's acting in this movie, and in action movies in general. I'm not afraid to say I am a fan of Tom Cruise While Acting.

It's just too bad they royally botched the marketing and release for it, definitely should have done better at the box office.
Okay, I just wrote too much on a year old movie!

I finally saw Gravity and I enjoyed it. Thrilling and breathtaking, can only imagine how intense it must have been in 3D. I do have one complaint though, the combination of tons of CGI highlighted with the unnatural nature of zero-g movement really took me out of the film sometimes. Especially the first person scenes which were interesting but kind of irksome. I felt during much of the movie like I was watching a cut scene from a Triple A video game.

Also, while probably an unpopular opinion, I actually enjoyed Interstellar more.

Not unpopular here at the Fort. Most people here I think preferred Interstellar to Gravity (I'm not one of them).

Yeah, I hate first-person shots as well except when she's spinning off into the void, I think it was important to show that to see how focked she was. Anyway, it's a fully immersive film so I think that's why they did it. Like when she's trying to winch open the airlock and the door blows open in her face... you sort of feel that (I love the no sound).

What's funny about your comment saying it's a cut scene from a triple A video game.... watch this...

We saw Kumiko the Treasure Hunter on Friday night...really, really good. It stars Rinko Kikuchi (the Japanese woman from Pacific Rim) as a Tokyo office girl who is both deathly bored of her job as well as obsessed with an old VHS copy of the Coen Brothers' Fargo. She watches it over and over and fills notebooks with her observations about where she thinks Steve Buscemi has hidden the money. When the opportunity presents itself, she flies to Minnesota and tries to find the area. It's really wonderful, a very accurate portrayal of a person with depression and other various mental problems. It's sad, but sweet and funny.

The story is based on an urban legend which itself is based on a sad but real incident. The body of a Japanese woman was found outside of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and due to a couple conversations with North Dakota cops, people thought that she was looking for the Fargo money. The reality is that she was just depressed over a breakup, and killed herself by taking sleeping pills with a bottle of champagne and falling asleep in freezing weather.

Taken 3 - Better than the second one, but that's not saying much. Basically Liam Neeson is The Fugitive and Forrest Whitaker is Tommy Lee Jones.

John Wick - Keanu Reeves is a retired assassin, but then Theon Greyjoy pisses him off so he kills like 300 Russian mobsters to calm down.

Wild - Completely by-the-numbers Oscar bait. Reese Witherspoon suffers much hardship by carrying a heavy pack and even breaks a nail. Also, all men are pigs.

Tracks - Mia Wasikowski crushes it as the woman who trekked across the Australian outback with her dog and four camels. Fantastically shot with interesting characters and camels are fucking cool.

War of the Worlds - The one with Tom Cruise in it. I liked the special effects. That's all.